When is enough enough?

Today I spent most of the day at a maximum security prison for men. I was part of a larger group of people including both people from the outside and inside. Prior to the meeting of our group there was a death in the "yard". A man who was born in 1945, the same year as my father died of a heart attack. He died right there in front of thousands of men. He had a life sentence so in many ways his death was a release. This kind of death, this release from suffering is difficult to digest and absorb.
A few hours after this man died we were sitting knee to knee mulling over a scenario about Malcolm "X". One man in our group told us a moving story about the day after he was arrested. He had not prayed to God in years, but felt compelled to say something to his lord. He said he couldn't ask for forgiveness or relief, but that it felt productive just to pray.

Another man in our group spoke--he was sitting next to me. He said with his eyes and words, "I used to believe in that stuff, but now... I just can't make my life make sense? How can all of this have meaning? How can it be ordained for me to spend my life rotting in this hellhole? My suffering will never end. This will never end."

When is enough enough? How many pounds of flesh is adequate when you have taken another person's life?

I can't imagine that something so terrible as prison life would never end.